Project Overview
I was interested in exploring the force and performance implications
of using a computer mouse with different gripping styles. For a
passionate subset of the PC gaming community, mouse grip is a topic of
interest that is deliberated on. In the ergonomics world, tool design
and use is an area of research with the ability to improve comfort and
reduce musculoskeletal disorders. Despite the existence of ergonomics
studies on computer mouse usage, the effects of different mouse gripping
styles on biomechanics and performance have yet to be explored.
And so, the question to be answered is: How do different
gripping styles on a computer mouse affect force distribution and
performance?
Let’s find out!
First, what do you mean by mouse grip?
Essentially, it’s how people hold and support their mouse.
There are three mouse grip styles that people are most familiar
with:
- Fingertip grip: Hold mouse with fingertips, no
contact with back of mouse
- Claw grip: Hold mouse with fingertips, support back
of mouse with palm
- Palm grip: Rest fingers and palm on mouse
Here’s a visualization for a better picture of what these grips look
like (source: Electronics
Hub): 
Summary
Averaged force measurements
from the max and median values per trial
Detailed Steps
I carried out the following steps in the process of answering the
research question:
- Connected force sensors to an Arduino
- Calibrated the sensors
- Attached the sensors to the mouse and measured forces
1) Connecting force sensors to Arduino
2) Calibration
The calibration step involved using a set of calibration masses to
determine the analog value associated with a given mass. Analog values
ranged from 0-1023 because the Arduino that was used possesses an analog
to digital converter with a 10-bit resolution (2^10 = 1024). Due to the
small physical dimensions of the sensors, only a limited number of
calibration masses could be placed at once. A measurement was taken
every 2 seconds over a 10 second window, so the average of 5 data points
was taken as the analog measurement for a given mass. Linear
interpolation was used to approximate mass when analog measurements fell
between calibration values. Collected values were then converted to
force, the main biomechanical outcome of interest.
3) Measuring forces
Sensors were attached to a modified Logitech G703 mouse on the left
side, left click, right click, right side, and body. The mouse was held
using three grips (fingertip, claw, and palm) while performing Fitts
point and click tasks across a range of difficulties. Data from the
force sensors was collected with a sampling rate of 100 Hz.
Plots were created by overlaying an image of the mouse with a
shapefile, effectively making a heat map of the forces exerted on the
different sections of the mouse.
knitr::opts_chunk$set(
echo = FALSE,
message = FALSE,
warning = FALSE
)
knitr::read_chunk("import_and_merge.R")
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